


Meeting

by misspamela



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misspamela/pseuds/misspamela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary and Matthew, in the library. Spoilers for S2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



Somehow, some hours after the post-funeral luncheon, when the mourners had gone home and the house had been blessedly stripped of all the wedding decorations, Mary happened upon Matthew in the library. She had gone in search of a good book, though it had been a long time since such things had been able to distract her from the circumstances of her life.

Matthew was slumped in her father’s favorite chair, staring into a glass of brandy. For a surprised moment Mary thought he might be drunk, which would be completely understandable, but quite unlike him. Then she realized he was simply lost to sadness, watching the liquid as it glinted amber in the late-afternoon sun.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, as not to startle him. “I’ll leave.” She picked up the nearest book -- _Hamlet_ , perfectly matching her dreadful mood -- and made for the door.

“It doesn’t matter,” Matthew said, which was as close to an invitation as she was likely to get from him.

Mary sat down next to him in silence, watching the clouds lumber past the window, heavy with rain. “I liked her,” she said, finally. She lifted one shoulder in an aborted shrug. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. But I genuinely liked her.” At her own words, Mary felt a jolt of grief for Lavinia, uncomplicated by her feelings for Matthew and her own guilt. Just sadness for a sweet, young life taken so soon. “My attentions to her were not false,” she said. “I’d have welcomed her as a friend, under different circumstances.”

“Under different circumstances,” Matthew said, slowly. He saluted Mary with the glass and took a sip. “Under different _circumstances_ , she would have and should have been married to some young vicar with a dozen fat babies and a happy life in Lancashire.”

Mary closed her eyes against the image that rose up in her mind. Lavinia, alive and happy and married, leaving her and Matthew to live here in Downton, happy and-- she pressed her fist to her mouth. It wouldn’t do to scream.

“And now I am to be a bachelor,” Matthew said. “And you are off to a life of wedded bliss.”

“Right,” Mary said. “Bliss.”

“You don’t love him,” Matthew said, not quite managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“I don’t even like him,” Mary said, the words raw in her throat, in a rare moment of honesty between them. “But I have no choice.” She twisted her hands in her lap.

“You always have a choice,” Matthew said. “I wish to God I’d known that sooner.”

“Spoken like a man.” Mary rose and crossed the carpet to the window. She had a brief, wild urge to fling herself through it. “I have no choice, don’t you see that?” That’s what Mother and Granny were trying to tell me, back when--”

“When they wanted you to marry me,” Matthew said grimly, from behind her.

She turned to face him. “I thought I could fight that,” she continued. “I was young and stupid and spoiled by a father with no sons. It was a prison of someone else’s making and I wanted nothing to do with it.” Tear pricked her eyes, but ever a good soldier, she carried on. “What I did not understand, what Mother and Granny were trying to tell me, if ever so gently, was that I was already in prison.” She could feel the chains tightening around her as she spoke. Sometimes, when the day was a bad one, she felt like she was dragging them, links and loops of metal around her neck and wrists, like some ghost in one of Sybil’s awful novels.

“The only choice I had,” Mary said softly, “was to choose my jailer.”

“Fine way to speak of love,” Matthew said, his eyes fixed on her.

Mary laughed. It was a terrible sound, even to her own ears. “If I had known how rare love was, and rarer still in marriages, I might have acted differently. There are many ways that I have been spoiled, and unreasonable expectations of marriage is one of them.”

“So you end up with the default jailer,” Matthew said, rising stiffly to stand in front of her. “A beautiful bird in her gilded cage.”

Mary didn’t answer. She bowed her head. “I have no choices left,” she said.

A soft touch on her cheek startled her into looking up. Matthew pulled his hand away, his eyes soft. “Don’t cry,” he said. To her surprise, she realized she was. Damned tears. “Who could have predicted the outcome of our lives thus far?” He dropped his hand. “I don’t mean to suggest--”

“I should go,” Mary said quickly. “It’s been a long day. I should check on Father. He’s been so sad since Mother was ill.” She didn’t look at Matthew as she crossed the room to the door. She swallowed her tears, forcing them down past the knot in her chest.

“Lady Mary,” Matthew called out. She froze at the door.

“I wish you only happiness,” he said, softly, the words barely drifting past her ear.

“Wish harder,” she said, and left her happiness behind with him.


End file.
